The Washington trilateral summit between the Obama administration and top officials in the Afghan and Pakistani governments continues tomorrow with meetings between intelligence, legal and agricultural officials from the three countries.

Here are some of the top US officials set to meet tomorrow with their Afghan and Pakistani counterparts.

Eric Holder, attorney general Holder is the first African-American to serve as the nation's top law enforcement official. He sits atop the justice department, which oversees dozens of agencies handling everything from enforcement of gun, alcohol and drug laws, to civil rights violations and the prosecution of a Somali pirate in a New York court.

Prior to joining the Obama administration Holder was a lawyer in private practice and an attorney in the Clinton justice department.

Leon Panetta, director of central intelligencePanetta heads the Central Intelligence Agency, America's flagship spy organisation. Prior to taking the post this year, Panetta was a congressman and a top official in the Clinton White House. He is known as a budget expert and was not a career intelligence worker. The CIA's reputation has been sullied lately by its involvement in the harsh interrogation, including waterboarding, of terrorism suspects. It also maintained secret prisons in eastern Europe and Afghanistan. Panetta's status as an intelligence outsider played a role in his selection.

The CIA has long-established ties to Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-services Intelligence, or ISI. In the 1980s the CIA reportedly funnelled covert aid and weapons to Afghan anti-Soviet fighters through the ISI.

Tom Vilsack, agriculture secretaryVilsack is the former governor of Iowa, a major farm and livestock state, and briefly sought last year's Democratic presidential nomination. The department of agriculture promotes international trade of US agricultural products and handles massive subsidies the US government pays its farmers. The department also has significant rural development programmes, offering energy loans and grants and water programmes.

Robert Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations Mueller was appointed by President George Bush and took office 4 September 2001, just days before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. Since the attacks, the bureau has focused much of its resources on counterterrorism, and it is likely Mueller and Afghan and Pakistani officials will discuss how to prevent Taliban terrorists from striking within the countries' borders. The bureau also handles public corruption cases.